


Still Burning

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insanity, Kinda, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 09:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: In all the ways that matter, Dean knows he never really got off the rack.But he’s having a pretty good dream.Sometimes he can even convince himself that it’s real.Or:Sam wasn't the only one who had trouble telling what was real after he got out of Hell.





	Still Burning

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Nothing specific for this one, I don't think, apart from what's in the tags. Please see the tags and feel free to ask in the comments or at my Tumblr if you have any questions.
> 
> A/N:  
This fic has been in my WIPs folder for a while and I only finished it recently. I've always wished the show had dealt with Dean's time in Hell, but since it didn't, I'm posting another angsty fic about it instead.   
This fic covers the scenes in season four I wanted to see more from. Hopefully it's not too disjointed. One scene I borrowed from Under Control, so if something looks familiar, that's why.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, and if you enjoy kudos and comments fuel the plot bunnies. :)

Dean wakes up in his own coffin and almost doesn’t bother trying to dig himself out. He’ll suffocate, he’ll come back, he won’t fight it, Alastair won’t get any more mad (please, please,  _ please-- _ )

But  _ Sam _ he thinks, and just like every other time Alastair’s done this, Dean has to act like it’s real because there’s just the slightest chance it might be and if it’s not, well.

He expects that by now. 

He can’t remember making Alastair angry but he must have. Showing Alastair that he would still escape won’t help with that but if this isn’t just another test then Dean would feel really stupid ending up back downstairs because he just stayed in his grave.

Dean slams his hands against the coffin lid until it breaks, choking on dirt and lack of oxygen. Then he hauls himself up to the surface.

The air doesn’t taste right. While he lies there squinting into the sun, he rolls his tongue around his mouth in contemplation.

It doesn’t taste right because it’s missing something. There’s no sulfur, no burning flesh, no ash.

The only thing that feels right is the pulsing pain in his right bicep. Dean focuses on that as he walks out of the epicenter of whatever hit this place.

When Dean gets to the gas station, he almost forgets to put his jacket over his fist. He remembers just in time that if this is real his fingers need to work. Still, the shattering of the gas station window sounds like home, even if it’s just glass and not bone.

The water from the refrigerator tastes like real water. It isn’t gasoline or acid or anything else Dean was expecting Alastair to have made it be.

He chokes drinking the water too fast and it’s such a banal occurrence that Dean lets himself start to hope that this is real.

He finds Sam, and everything should be fine, everything should be normal. They’re back together and this is too nice to be a dream. They hunt and crisscross the US and Dean tries to let himself believe it’s real. 

The problem is that Dean doesn’t really dream anymore. Most nights he doesn’t get much sleep. He just ends up staring at the ceiling trying to stop seeing strung-up bodies and trying to listen to Sammy’s breathing instead of the screams.

Except Sam thinks Dean still sleeps and Sam leaves, some nights.

Dean starts drinking himself to sleep most nights after the second time he wakes up choking on his screams, choking on his own blood, choking on his  _ yes _ , and Sam’s not there

They’re in Washington and it’s sunny when Dean confesses he remembers Hell. The sun reflecting off the water reminds him that this is probably real. Hell doesn’t have water or sunlight. There’s just fire and blood and screams.

They find Anna and Dean somehow doesn’t put together which demon is coming for them until Alastair walks into the room and his whole world reorients itself.

Alastair is on top of him and Dean has the leverage to send him flying but the reflexes burned into him over forty years kick in and he’s frozen, all he can see or hear or think is  _ Alastair _ . Sam has to haul Dean to his feet and then to the window and Dean knows he should help but all he can do is watch Alastair. 

(Dean spent forty years burning with Alastair as his only constant. Dean spent nearly twice as much time in Hell than on Earth. Dean doesn’t know how to trust anything but Alastair to be real anymore.)

“You’re one crazy son of a bitch,” Uriel says, something approaching admiration in the angel’s voice. 

(And yeah, he’s crazy or something close to it, smelling sulfur on his skin and seeing blood on his hands, letting his thoughts wander to bullets to the head and a full bottle of oxy when he knows exactly where he’d end up, and maybe that’s what he wants anyway.)

Yeah, he’s one crazy son of a bitch.

“I don’t break easy,” Dean tells Uriel, smiling like his daddy taught him to, and it’s both one of the only truths he has left and one of the most blatant lies he’s ever told.

“Yes, you do,” Uriel says, and Dean reaches for his flask the moment he wakes up.

“I know you heard him,” Dean says, and the secrets he never thought he’d let himself think about spill out. Alastair had always had a talent for that sort of thing.

Dean has the same talent. But he doesn’t have to use it anymore. He won’t let himself be used anymore.

The drive back to Bobby’s is filled with a heavy silence. Dean wonders if Sam regrets that he’d clawed himself out of his grave and come back.

They’re in Nebraska when Dean kills an animal that had been human once and tries to walk the line between telling the truth and worrying Sam. It’s a line that’s becoming increasingly harder to navigate.

“You make me walk through that door,” Dean tells Cas, his hands shaking, “you will not like what walks back out.”

He’s managed to convince himself that this is real, that he’s out, that Alastair doesn’t have him anymore. But all of his reasons for believing it crumble when he hears Alastair’s voice. 

His hands are perfectly steady when he picks up his first knife. It’s different here, harder when the person on the rack isn’t going to automatically heal, but in some ways it’s exactly the same. 

They still scream the same.

(In all the ways that matter, Dean knows he never really got off the rack. 

But he’s having a pretty good dream. 

Sometimes he can even convince himself that it’s real.)


End file.
